Appeal No. 97-2116
Application 07/789,802
onto the article. [abstract, emphasis added]
Thus, the thrust in Hoffman is to apply heat locally to the
overlapped upstanding end portions 20, 21 of the label to
shrink these overlapped end portions to re-entrant portions of
the container. Since the container of Cvacho ‘423 is not
disclosed to have any re-entrant (i.e., reduced diameter)
portions, and thus would not require any localized heating of
the outer housing 16 to bring it into close contain with the
inner container at the ends of the outer housing, it is not
clear that one of ordinary skill in the art would consider
Hoffman’s teachings as being relevant to Cvacho ‘423. In any
event, assuming that it would have been obvious to apply
Hoffman’s teachings in Cvacho ‘423, and further assuming that
locally shrinking the outer housing to the inner foil
container of Cvacho ‘423 would not crush the thin foil inner
container, it is questionable whether Hoffman’s localized
heating and shrink fitting techniques would result in
increasing the axial strength of the thin foil inner container
of Cvacho ‘423 as called for in claim 1.
For these reasons, we cannot sustain the rejection of
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